Mitt Romney is emerging as the point man in the Republican party’s effort to stop Donald Trump. He gave a blistering speech attacking the front runner for his character, his honesty, his policies, his intelligence, and his business prowess. And he is putting forward a plan to keep Trump from getting the 1,237 he needs to be nominated. This involves encouraging Republicans to vote for the specific non-Trump candidate who has the best chance of beating him in each state (Kasich in Ohio, Rubio in Florida, etc.). Instead of rallying behind a single candidate, the strategy would be to split up the delegates so that no one, including Trump, has a majority. Then the convention would be deadlocked and could turn to. . . .Who? Romney?
Mitt Romney has instructed his closest advisers to explore the possibility of stopping Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention, a source close to Romney’s inner circle says.
The 2012 GOP nominee’s advisers are examining what a fight at the convention might look like and what rules might need revising.
“It sounds like the plan is to lock the convention,” said the source.
Romney is focused on suppressing Trump’s delegate count to prevent him from accumulating the 1,237 delegates he needs to secure the nomination.
But implicit in Romney’s request to his team to explore the possibility of a convention fight is his willingness to step in and carry the party’s banner into the fall general election as the Republican nominee. Another name these sources mentioned was House Speaker Paul Ryan, Romney’s running mate in 2012.
According to the source, Romney does not expect Rubio, Cruz or Kasich to emerge as the single candidate that can accumulate 1,237 delegates and outright defeat Trump before the convention. So the only way to rob Trump of a victory would be to keep him from reaching that magic 1,237 number.
Most Republican states allocate their delegates proportionally, or in a hybrid format that gives delegates both to the statewide winner and at the congressional district level. This means rather than winnowing the competition down to a single Trump alternative, it could make more sense for all of the current candidates to stay in the race for a stop Trump movement, according to one source. . . .
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